HANDLING AND SHIPPING FRESH CHERRIES AND PRUNES. 9 



berry crates or similar types of carton packages are used. A more ex- 

 tended trial of such packages for the shipment of cherries from sec- 

 tions like the Willamette Valley would seem to be desirable. The 

 10-pound cherry box when well packed is a very attractive package 

 and is intimately associated with western cherries in the minds of 

 the eastern and middle-western fruit trade. While the appearance of 

 package and product counts for a great deal on the market, soundness 

 is of first consideration. Even though cherries in berry crates or 

 similar packages may not command the price that they would in 

 the 10-pound box, it is a question whether this would not be offset by 

 the decreased cost of packing and the better condition of the fruit. 

 These factors can hardly be satisfactorily determined without com- 

 mercial tests. 



PRECOOLING EXPERIMENTS. 



The precooling plant constructed by the Salem Fruit Union was 

 utilized for the precooling experiments. In these experiments both 

 carefully and commercially handled fruit was used in each series, 



PRECOOLED NON PRECOOLED 



PE/5 CENT DECAY PER CENT DECAY 



1 FIVE DAYS IN ICED CAR I ' 1 ' I ' T 



9 22 ON WITHDRAWAL 32 fl 



102 TWO DAYS CATER 10.2 



TEN DAYS IN ICED CAR 



66 ON WITHDRAWAL 



12 .7 TWO DAYS LATER 



FIFTEEN DAYS IN ICED CAR 



ON WITHDRAWAL 

 TWO DAYS LATER 



Fig. 2. — Diagram illustrating the percentages of decay in precooled and nonprecooled 

 cherries commercially handled, Salem, Oreg., 1911. 



one half of each lot being precooled and the other half placed in the 

 refrigerator car without precooling. The data given in Table II, 

 which are illustrated graphically in figure 2, show the relation of 

 precooling to decay and market condition, wherein only the results of 

 the commercially handled fruit are given, the small amount of decay 

 in the carefully handled fruit being practically the same in both the 

 precooled and nonprecooled lots. 



While there are consistent differences in favor of the precooled 

 fruit, these are not nearly so striking as the differences between the 

 carefully and commercially handled lots, and although they bring 

 out to some extent the value of precooling, they emphasize most 

 strongly the importance of careful handling. The fruit in the pre- 

 cooling experiments was usually cooled to a temperature of 40° F. 

 10980°— Bull. 331—16 2 



